RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2024 features 35 gardens in six categories which have all been designed to delight, inspire and educate. The winners have been announced as follows:
Best Show Garden: Muscular Dystrophy UK – Forest Bathing Garden, Designed by Ula Maria.
This garden seeks to show how an immersive, accessible garden can offer a place of solace and reflection for those affected by Muscular Dystrophy as well as their families and clinicians. The design is based on the Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku (forest bathing) in which lying down under a canopy of trees is a kind of meditation to connect yourself to the natural world. The main built feature is a knapped flint wall, reminiscent of muscle cells, which serves as a tool for explaining what Muscular Dystrophy is and the devastating effect it can have on muscles. It’s a very green space with 40 birch trees in a grove with pretty woodland planting beneath.
Best Construction Award (Show Garden): Terrence Higgins Trust Bridge to 2030 Garden, Built by Yoreland Design Ltd.
Created by Matthew Childs, this garden is for the HIV charity Terrence Higgins Trust and aims to highlight its vision that by 2030 there will be no new HIV cases. The garden is inspired by a quarry landscape in north Wales and how plants manage to survive in it and reshape a very harsh environment.
There’s a sunken pool which exposes a tombstone crossing. Per the show notes this tombstone, “which once represented death and fear, is now a crossing into the garden, with the destination being a secluded terrace in which to enjoy a positive, hopeful future together.” Crevices have been planted with alpines and some rare specimens.
Best Sanctuary Garden: Burma Skincare Initiative Spirit of Partnership Garden, Designed by Helen Olney.
This garden tells the story of healthcare workers in Myanmar and textures such as bark, plants, moss and lichen are illustrative of the debilitating skin diseases affecting adults and supported by the charity. There is a traditional Burmese stilt garden sitting above a pool looking across to a waterfall. All of the plants used are found in Myanmar and also grow in the UK and Ireland for example the Magnolia porcelain dove, white Mulberry, water mint and snake-bark maple.
Best Construction Award (Sanctuary Garden): The Boodles Garden, Built by Gadd Brothers Trees and Landscapes.
The Boodles Garden by Catherine MacDonald celebrates the 200th anniversary of the National Gallery; the design aims to evoke the spirit of many significant artworks. There are several metal water features which play with light and reflection and are reminiscent of works by Renoir, Monet and Suerat. Visitors are led through series of sculptural arches that capture Canaletto and Claude’s perspective and also the detail of Klimt.
The planting is in a painterly style. What makes this garden particularly special is its link to Boodles’ latest high jewellery collection – named The Boodles National Gallery Collection which is also inspired by the paintings in the Gallery. These include Claude Monet’s Water-Lily Pond.
Best Balcony and Container Garden: The Ecotherapy Garden, Designed by Tom Bannister.
Inspired by biophilic principles and cold-plunge therapy, this lush courtyard garden features shade-loving plants in handmade troughs. A cold plunge pool is the centrepiece of the garden while the gentle sound of water adds to the sense of serenity. The space aims to rejuvenate physical and mental wellbeing – after a cold plunge a bench offers a place for contemplation. The clear water reflects the surrounding greenery.
Best All About Plants: The Size of Wales Garden, Designed by Dan Bristow.
This garden is inspired by the abundance and diversity of life that occurs in tropical forests of the world and the work that Size of Wales is doing to prevent the tragedy of its destruction. A total of 313 plants are used in the planting and the entire garden will live on and mature at Treboth Botanic Garden, North Wales.
The RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2024 runs until Saturday May 25; www.rhs.org.